History truncated by mammoth apparently killed by humans

The discovery of a well-preserved juvenile woolly mammoth suggests that ancient humans "stole" mammoths from hunting lions, scientists say.

Bernard Buigues of the Mammuthus organisation acquired the frozen mammoth from tusk hunters in Siberia.

Scientists completed an initial assessment of the animal, known as Yuka, in March this year.

Wounds indicate that both lions and humans may have been involved in the ancient animal's death...

...Lions will usually enter the carcass through the belly, clamp their teeth over the mouth in order to suffocate their prey, and chew at an elephant's muscular trunk.

However, Yuka's trunk is not damaged and there is only slight damage to the hide around the face.

Instead of entering Yuka's body via the belly, there is what Professor Fisher describes as "a bizarre set of damage on the hide".

This includes a "long, straight cut that stretches from the head to the centre of the back" as well as "very unusual patterned openings" into the skin and "scalloped margins" on the upper right-hand flank...

Each scalloped mark on the skin is made up by 15-30 small, serrations that "could be the saw-like motion of a human tool" and there are "some quite striking cut marks" on the leg bones, according to Professor Fisher.

Prof Fisher said they had questioned whether the cuts could have been made more recently.

"We asked the people who found this mammoth multiple times if they had done this. They replied 'No! We did not get our knives out' which suggests we're looking at some sort of interaction of humans, mammoths and lions.

"Were humans using the lions to catch mammoths and then moving the lions off their kill... was that what happened? I don't know but I wouldn't have thought about it without seeing it [the evidence]."

Supporting this argument, the Dorobo tribe still practise the art of stealing kills from lions in Kenya...

"Each new specimen has something to teach us, but Yuka provides some of the most dramatic evidence yet available for events surrounding the death of a woolly mammoth on the arctic steppes of Siberia..."

Source (incl. footage)

Can you believe how well this creature has been preserved? Bearing in mind how a carcass can disintegrate in days under some circumstances, the state of this specimen leaves me speechless. And to top it all there seem to be signs of human involvement in its demise.

The question that comes to my mind is: how could an animal be subjected to a violent death, be partially butchered and eaten, then be found many thousands of years later in pristine condition?! Sure, ice can preserve — but the chances of this evidence of human-mammoth interaction surviving intact for 6,000 years + must be miniscule. I can only surmise the event must have coincided with the mother of all blizzards.

...Which makes you wonder why the hunters didn't take the thick-furred skin.

In any case this relic takes us right back to a former era, presenting a detective case which opens the imagination to vivid images of a mammoth-inhabited landscape. And hard-won delicacies...

i think the perma frost has something to do with the presevation. just like the siberian ice man they found intact with his tattoos still visible and his bag o 'goodies' they found on him!
didn't they find mammoths with food in their mouth like they were grazing,and it appears as though they were 'flash frozen'? what could cause this?
i liked the movie the day after tomorrow,but thats a bit extreme!

Preserved frozen remains of woolly mammoths, with much soft tissue remaining, have been found in the northern parts of Siberia. This is a rare occurrence, essentially requiring the animal to have been buried rapidly in liquid or semi-solids such as silt, mud and icy water, which then froze. This may have occurred in a number of ways. Mammoths may have been trapped in bogs or quicksands and either died of starvation or exposure, or drowning if they sank under the surface. The evidence of undigested food in the stomach and seed pods still in the mouth of many of the specimens suggests neither starvation nor exposure are likely. The maturity of this ingested vegetation places the time period in autumn rather than in spring when flowers would be expected.[35] The animals may have fallen through ice into small ponds or potholes, entombing them. Many are certainly known to have been killed in rivers, perhaps through being swept away by river floods. In one location, by the Berelekh River in Yakutia in Siberia, more than 8,000 bones from at least 140 individual mammoths have been found in a single spot, apparently having been swept there by the current.[36][37]

wikipedia source

reply to post by reficul


Quite. Yet permafrost can't suddenly envelop a carcass. As you say, many appear 'flash frozen'!

In this particular instance there is real mystery to how the animal could have gone from the kitchen table, as it were, to the deep freeze. It's a long-shot, perhaps, but how about this: the people who enjoyed the meat sought to store it safely in an underground larder.

It just so happens that I have seen this approach used in a somewhat primitive culture. Food was placed in a square hole about four foot deep, and preserved thereafter by the winter frost, straw having been placed over the food items — with a layer of soil on top. As a matter of fact it was actually described to me as a freezer.

You could speculate further and suggest the lions subsequently bested the spear-welding tribesmen, consumed their remains, and inadvertently provided the 21st century with an historic discovery.

'Elementary my dear Watson, elementary.'

reply to post by pause4thought


you very well may be correct friend. but all i know is i wouldn't want to be the poor sap fighting off the lions with a stick!!!